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How Powerful is a Simple Text Message Reminder?

This is a guest post by our friend Brett Kopf who’s one of the founders of remind101. If you haven’t heard of remind101, it’s a technology company that allows teachers to text message or email students and parents.

Just how powerful can a simple text messages reminder be?

My brother and I asked ourselves this when we started remind101, a service that provides a safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents.

In a recent post, Derek cited Frost and Sullivan’s research that shows text messages have a 98% open rate, while email’s open rate is 22%. That means teachers are that much more effective when they communicate with students. With Remind101, if a teacher wants to give a homework correction, they’re almost guaranteed that the student will actually see their message–with email, not so much.

We launched in August and already people are seeing value in it: we now have over 4,500 teachers sending text messages to more than 60,000 students and parents. Even better than the numbers, the feedback we’re receiving is incredible–students are turning in more assignments, and parents can be more engaged in their kids’ education. Plus, it’s all incredibly easy and safe for teachers, since students never see their cell phone number.

So, to answer the question: for teachers and students, we’ve found that text message reminders can be incredibly powerful.